April 20, 2010

In case you hadn't heard - Nevermet Press started accepting entries for a Monster MashUp Contest yesterday. The contest runs only until Monday of next week (April 26th) - so if you want to win some great prizes, simply answer the following question in 300 words or less.

April 17, 2010

Two weeks ago or so I started following @Dicecreator on Twitter after a tweet by Michael Wolf (from Stargazer's World). Anyway... this guy @Dicecreator makes precision hand-crafted dice that he inlays with brass! How cool is that? Check out and subscribe to his blog, Dice Creator.

He makes the coolest dice I've ever seen. Make no mistake, he's an artist.

I won't mince words: You should support his guy and buy his dice. He's doing some really cool stuff. Go to his eBay store page, Unconventional Dice, and buy some dice from him. Yes - they are more expensive than dice from Chessex or [insert other company here]. But these dice are made with BRASS. Also, his dice are usually a flat rate of around 8 or 9 Euros per die (~$10.50 each) - and, there is an auction going for one very special unique set of dice right now (which I'm trying to win), but that's unusual. Typically the die are sold at a flat-rate.

Just look at some of his designs! The first design below I bought myself a pair and - after having them in my hands for night of gaming - these are incredibly cool dice. And, after rolling 1000 times (with the help of my 6-year old son - poor kid) - BALANCED TOO. Very nice work.

Steampunk Dice

Manga Dice

Watchmen Dice (not for sale I think)

TRON dice - also not for sale.

Honeycomb Dice. Awesome Sauce...

Dr. Manhattan dice

FUDGE dice. Sweet!

I'm also VERY happy to mention that @Dicecreator will be working with Nevermet Press for some upcoming contests. So, head over there to NMP and watch for the details!

April 15, 2010

If this doesn't scream crowd sourcing awesome sauce out of the big blue blogosphere, I don't know what does.

This rocks!

From the sales blurb...

This impressive free product showcases the winners of last year’s “One Page Dungeon” contest. Instigators of the contest (and editors of the project) are RPG bloggers Philippe-Antoine Ménard (better known as the “Chatty DM”) and Michael “Chgowiz” Shorten.

The Codex presents the contest’s top three winners, six runners up who were ‘Judges’ Picks,’ and another dozen entries which were awarded honorable mentions. With 'dungeons' ranging from “The Barnacle Cave” to the Victorian setting of “The Horror of Leatherbury House” to the prize-winning “Valley of the Necromancer Kings,” there is something here of interest to nearly everyone. All locations are entirely system neutral, and each includes a map as part of the one-page description. In addition, the editors have provided a series of articles on the development of the “One Page Dungeon” concept, and how GMs can create one-page dungeons for themselves.

The ebook is 54 pages, which includes the articles and dungeons, and information on the contest judges and sponsors. The cover is by artist Mark Allen, and Mates Laurentiu of Avatar Art provided illustrations of the three winning dungeons. The entire book is in full color, but a button is provided (on page 2) to hide the color page backgrounds if desired. (This feature functions only in recent versions of Acrobat Reader, such as version 8 and later.) The dungeons, and the One Page Dungeon template, are all released under the Creative Commons Share-alike license. (See the ebook for more details.)

April 8, 2010

I just received word from Justin Achilli that he has accepted our invitation to write the Foreword for Open Game Table, Volume 2!

Who is Justin Achilli? Well, for one he's a 20+ year veteran of the gaming industry and is currently the Managing Editor at White Wolf Publishing. He previously was the line developer of Vampire: The Requiem and Vampire: The Masquerade. Check out his LinkedIn.com profile if you are interested; but basically he is someone who really knows games. That he is willing to lend a hand to support the OGT project is a great honor indeed.

So, wholeheartedly, a big big thank you goes out to him from everyone involved with the project. I can't wait to read his viewpoints on the blogging community and the future of RPGs.

In other news - editing of the raw manuscript (all the final entries) continues. Hopefully I'll get back the edits from the other members of the OGT Editorial Board this weekend and we'll have a real working draft ready by next week.